Drill trains guardsmen for toxic emergencies

BANGOR – At the commands, “prepare to roll … roll,” the steady hands of medics garbed in protective gear pulled a man onto his side on a stretcher. Other medics then scrubbed and washed his body of what could have been a toxic contaminant, had this been a real nerve gas attack.

Instead, the medics of the 101st Air Refueling Wing of the Maine Air National Guard were training on decontamination equipment, a mobile system intended to go into “warm zone” areas after a chemical spill or terrorist attack and curb the spread of any chemical or biohazard.

Set up safely away from the “hot zone,” or ground zero, of the incident, the decontamination tent and equipment allow medics to clean the injured before they are transported to a hospital. It was set up on Thursday inside one of the buildings on base as part of a demonstration session.

Trained on the equipment for much of the week, the 15 medics and one firefighter from the Air National Guard base in Bangor were required to see how quickly the tent could be set up and be made operational. The U.S. Air Force requires that it be ready within 20 minutes.

The Guard unit, using the base’s environmental management building, did it in less than 13 minutes.

“We blew that away,” said Chief Master Sgt. Deborah Smith, the unit’s chief medic, still wearing some of the baggy green and gray protective gear that would keep her safe from contaminants out in a real-world disaster.

Setup times can differ, depending on where the tent is deployed, she said, but the equipment is flexible and built to operate on as little water as from a garden hose to the more robust flow of a fire hydrant.

It goes up quickly and simply. It has to.

In an emergency, decontamination units need to be up and ready as soon as possible, said Smith, who wryly said she wished camping tents were this easy.

The 14-foot-long, 17-foot-wide blue tent, with two open sides, has enough room to handle both those victims who can walk and those carried in on stretchers. In the main section of the 8-foot-tall tent, medics lined up on both sides of a bench with rollers, and in a mass-production, assembly-line fashion, they processed the contaminated victim, in this case, Chief Master Sgt. Kip Nelson, who volunteered for the job.

The whole process can take six to eight minutes for someone on a stretcher and much less, only a few minutes, for those who can walk through a separate cleaning area.

After the backboard was loaded onto the rollers, a pair of medics quickly cut Nelson’s clothing from his body and then rolled him forward to the next medics, who washed and scrubbed him doing one side at a time and scrubbing the backboard. Then they rinsed. The medics weren’t taking any chances that any contaminant remained.

The chemicals used inside the tent to combat the complex pervasive contaminants were surprisingly simple: water and dishwashing liquid. The dishwashing liquid breaks up oil substances used to help the contaminants better adhere to clothing and other things, said Ken Hall, an instructor in the military affairs division of Reeves EMS, the Maryland-based company that made the decontamination unit.

The water was heated to 105 degrees Fahrenheit, but by the time it reached the sprays, it had cooled to body temperature. Too hot, and the water opens up pores in the skin giving the contaminant another foothold into the body, Hall said. Too cool, and the patient can suffer hypothermia.

“Even on a 70-degree day, naked and wet, you’re going to go into hypothermia,” Hall said.

The water washed away contamination, and a sump pump sent it to a bladder than can hold 1,200 gallons. The injured victim was rinsed in hot water and wrapped in a Mylar space blanket intended to keep in his body heat.

The decontamination unit can handle about 40 patients per hour, although personnel are required to wear special protective gear and are limited to three hours of work. With two teams of 12 available to operate the system, the tent can be operated for six hours.

The decontamination units cost about $30,000 and were distributed to about 39 Air National Guard units, Maj. Debbie Kelley, 101st Air Refueling Wing community manager, said.

Those trained this week in what is called the In-Place Patient Decontamination Capability are only the start. They, in turn, will train others on the base, the mechanics, maintenance personnel, security, motor pool, air crews and even new recruits to maximize the pool of available responders. Air National Guard officials are also looking at working with the Army National Guard.

“The more hands, the better,” Smith said.